


Two of Us Riding Nowhere

by oxymoronassoc



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-18
Updated: 2017-06-18
Packaged: 2018-11-15 13:29:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11231991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oxymoronassoc/pseuds/oxymoronassoc
Summary: Spoilers thru "Valley of Darkness".Two of us riding nowhereSpending someone's hard earned payYou and me Sunday drivingNot arriving on our way back homeWe're on our way back homeOriginally written 2/5/06





	Two of Us Riding Nowhere

"Karl."

He glanced over at her, took in the cigar clamped between her teeth, the bottle of beer held snug between her thighs. He didn't say anything though; wasn't like there were any cops around to pull them over and she wasn't drunk. Not that her driving could get any worse than it already was. He was glad there were no cars; now he remembered why he never let Kara drive.

"Yeah?"

"Are we lost?"

"I don't know. Where are we going?"

Hazel eyes jerked away from the empty road to pin him against his seat. "You're supposed to be navigating," she told him in an accusatory tone. "That's why you're the fracking nav-com. Some ECO you are." She waved the cigar about with one hand before momentarily removing both hands from the wheel to take a swallow of her beer. "Tastes like piss," she told him for the seventh time, settling the bottle back between her legs and putting a hand back on the wheel. 

He just blinked and took a drink from his own bottle. Sometimes Kara just needed to get it out with no poking, no prodding, no prying as to why, what, or how.

"Well, where is the motherfracking map? Hop to it."

"Kara, I don't think a map is going to give us directions to nowhere."

The Humvee swerved then as she glared over at him and ash fell from her cigar onto the seat. "What the frack are you talking about?" she demanded angrily.

"What do you think I'm talking about? I don't know where to go that I haven't already tried. I'd be off this rock otherwise."

"Oh." 

Her tone was sullen and she sucked on the cigar. The smell of it filled the vehicle and Karl found himself craving a puff. Will power, he reminded himself, removing a piece of sticky hard candy from his pocket and unwrapping the congealed mass from the cellophane with difficulty. It stuck to the roof of his mouth and he spent the time Kara was sulking or thinking or whatever it was she was doing to scrape the sticky coating off with his tongue to reveal the undamaged candy below. 

"We need gas," she said after a few miles, tapping the plastic cover to the gauges with her fingernail. 

"So stop somewhere."

"Maybe I will." 

She stuck her tongue out at him and he grinned. Sometimes, he worried about her. It had to be rough, deserting the _Galactica_ and flying back here only to get smacked around before discovering one of your friends was a cylon. It'd taken its toll on him, and he figured, although he didn't ask, that it had affected her too. It was good to see her smiling to herself with that cocky cat-who-got-the-cream smirk.

They stopped at a mini mart after another hour of driving. Kara kicked the pumps rather viciously when she realized they required electricity to pump the gasoline from the underground tanks. Helo winced, but said nothing, merely watched and squinted against the harsh afternoon light. Sometimes you had to let Kara do her thing. Sometimes her thing was kicking shit. 

"I want a godsdamn chocolate bar," she announced suddenly. 

"Okay." Maybe they would have some lollypops. The kind with gum in the center. Sour apple. Karl grinned and followed her inside. 

"This place stinks," Kara told him unnecessarily, wandering down the aisle, her shoes making loud, sticky noises on the linoleum. 

"Yeah," he agreed, picking up one of the plastic baskets near the door and methodically filling it with things they might need. Bandages, canned food, paper products, bottled water. Not instant noodles. It might be the end of the fracking world, but Karl Agathon was not going to eat instant fracking noodles.

There was a sudden spurting noise, of liquids spattering down onto the floor, which was quickly followed by Kara cursing. "Augh, frack, sick!" 

He rounded the corner of the aisle to see Kara standing to the side of a pool of bright red liquid. "Did you pull the lever on the slushie machine?" he asked, trying not to laugh at her disgruntled expression.

"I might've," she shot back, thrusting her chin out before stalking off to clamber over the counter to riffle through the boxes of cigars kept high on a shelf behind the register. 

He chuckled then, shaking his head at her antics. With Kara around, one was always entertained. 

The door opened and closed, signaling her exit. He left a few minutes later, loading the supplies into the Humvee. It took him a moment to notice she wasn't around. 

"Kara?" he called, unwrapping one of the few precious lollypops that had been in a battered bin by the register. "Starbuck?" 

She rounded the corner of the service garage, a smear of grease across her cheek. "I found gas!" she told him chirpily, lugging the plastic container towards him. 

"It was just sitting there?" he asked, rattling the candy against his teeth for a moment before moving to help her carry the heavy container to the vehicle.

"Nah, there were some cars in the garage still. I siphoned it off." She looked pleased with herself.

He removed the lollypop to whistle. "That's a neat trick there, Lieutenant."

"The benefits of an ill-spent youth. Now you can show me a neat trick and put that into the tank," she told him, still grinning. 

He shook his head, prying the gas tank open and doing as she bid. Sometimes he wished she didn't have these weird quirks because he knew why she had them, but then times like these popped up and he was eternally grateful for her past exploits. 

She was standing with her hands clasped behind her back, legs braced when he looked for her, finished with the refueling. He'd never been particularly attracted to her, not in that way, although he could see how you could be. To him, she was just Kara, his last friend on the planet. He hadn't realized how much he'd needed a friend until Sharon, and now that she was a fracking cylon? Well, at least he had Kara. And he was pretty damn sure she was the last person to be a robot.

Kara turned, relaxing her stance, and he wondered what she'd been thinking about. She squinted against the light as she swaggered over to him, and he could see the limp in her step and wondered if her old Pyramid tear was acting up or if it was something else.

"Karl?"

"Yeah?"

"Let's go home."


End file.
